Edward Snowden Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

by | Jul 16, 2013

Stefan Svallfors, a Swedish professor on the Nobel Committee, has nominated NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for a Nobel Peace Prize. Svallfors says Snowden deserves it due to his “heroic effort,” and notes that it would help recover the prize’s “disrepute” following the “hasty and ill-conceived” decision to award it to Barack Obama.

An excerpt from Svallfors’s letter:

Edward Snowden has – in a heroic effort at great personal cost – revealed the existence and extent of the surveillance, the U.S. government devotes electronic communications worldwide. By putting light on this monitoring program – conducted in contravention of national laws and international agreements – Edward Snowden has helped to make the world a little bit better and safer.

The decision to award the 2013 prize to Edward Snowden would – in addition to being well justified in itself – also help to save the Nobel Peace Prize from the disrepute that incurred by the hasty and ill-conceived decision to award U.S. President Barack Obama 2009 award.

Via POLITICO, here’s WikiLeaks on the nomination: